this is for keeps
by silver moon droplet
Summary: second place : yuffieriku. kairiaxel. naminé!centric: Reality eats away, and her memories begin to fade…her eyes remain shut, and her words remain unheard. She was crazy, after all - just as crazy as a caged bird.


**The whole thing started as a Naminé drabble, and then it hit me in the head like woah so it has a very drabble-esque touch to it. And yes, it can be annoying - but stick with it it's good I promise. It's also super damn confusing, meant to be : if you get lost re-read and if you still don't get it, I'll explain. Mine was "maybe we're not supposed to be happy." Riku/Yuffie.**

She splashes the paint on to the wall; it splatters across- in dots, in spirals the colors mix (**black**_&_white) and remind her of the boy she knew. Because it begins to turn gray, and that's just where they stand in life - right in the middle of hero and heartless. N o b o d y. That's what she remembers, at least. She remembers a boy who has spiky _blonde_ hair and a boy with spiky _red_ hair, and how she _used_ to create things, terrible things. She can't remember why, but she did, and she hated it, and then in the end, even though she fixed all her mistakes, she had to go back to being in the background - because that was where belonged. She throws her paintbrush down, tired of swinging it around like a deadly weapon. She stands and watches the paint drip and dry.

She can't tell what's just a dream and what's reality - they mix and they mash, just like her paint. And she can't control it, so she decides to paint it like it is - messy, abstract, confusing. Yet, as she stands back, she can see them all, and she smiles. Because that was her life - just as pointless and ugly as the wall she painted - but if you just step back…

It was a work of art.

-_- - _

Kairi wakes up, her palms sweating, and kicks the red-haired sex god next to her. He groans. Swatting her away with his hand, he puts his pillow over his head; Kairi glares at it. She kicks him again - a tad bit harder - and he groans once. This time, while sitting up, his eyes still closed, she throws her pillow at him.

"You promised."

She crosses her arms, watching him lay back down. She gets out of bed and changes into more appropriate clothes, and then turns back to face him.

"Sora would do it."

"Well, it's a good thing I don't have brown hair and ADD."

Kairi sighs as she closes the door and leaves his apartment. It's too cold for spring, so she hopes it will warm up soon. She walks down the street; it's too late to be out, but too early to be asleep, so she walks, and she walks, and she knows where she's going. But at the same time, she wonders -

If she didn't, would it matter anyways?

-_- - _

"Oh, shit. Riku is going to be _pissed_." The artist looks away from her work, over towards the girl in the hallway. Chocolate brown eyes stare at her with excitement and surprise. She stares at the wall, then looks at the blonde girl with blue eyes who's stained her white dress with paint. "It needs some Yuffie - you mind, Naminé?" And Naminé just stares at her, and then shrugs.

"It's your boyfriend's wall."

Yuffie snorts, rolling her eyes as she dips her small hand into the paint can. "Please. After this stunt, I hardly think we'll be on speaking terms, let alone friends." She slams her hand against the wall, leaving a handprint - It looks so out of place in the swirls and splatters. Yuffie turns to Naminé with a grin. "Do you have any color?"

And Naminé laughs. "He'd kill me."

"No, he'd kill me." Yuffie grabs her arm, staining her perfect, porcelain skin. "Show me the way."

With Yuffie, it was just like that - life or death, she was heading straight towards it, and Naminé knew better than to mess with a girl ready to fight death.

-_- - _

Kairi goes to Riku's place - Radiant Garden - but the door is locked. She curses - she needs to get her coffee fix now. It isn't open to the public yet, but Kairi is family (practically) and so she sits on the curb. She can't go anywhere without coffee, and she can't go back home (she's lost her keys.) She wonders if Riku would mind too terribly if she broke in, just break the back door in - she and Axel did it all the time.

She imagines alarms being set off, the cops coming, she being framed for stealing money. It would be all over the papers, and then her loving boyfriend would cough up the bail money. She could only laugh at what would happen next - Riku banning her from all RG coffee products. She sighs; it was going to be a long day.

She hears a crash, a squeal…and then silence. Kairi looks in through the glass - what the hell was going on in there? She puts her hand against the window and squints to get a better look - did someone beat her to it? No, only Kairi would be sane enough to break the back door in. _Unless_…

She snorts. As if Axel would be up this early.

"Fuck, Yuffie!" she hears Riku scream at his beloved ninja girlfriend. And Kairi smiles; she was going to get coffee now. Thank heavens for Yuffie and whatever mayhem she was causing at five a.m.

-_- - _

Yuffie puts her hands on her hips. "You had it coming, sneaking up on us like you're some sorta stalker." Naminé stares at her orange-paint-covered brother, the pain that, in fright or maybe boredom, Yuffie threw on Riku. It was all over his clothes, his hair, and everything in the storage room. Naminé bites her lip - what a waste of paint - and she watches Yuffie prance over to him, hugging him and getting her torso covered in orange paint.

"It could have been much worse." She takes her hands and wipes the paint off his face. "I could've thrown pink paint on you, and it would have been unwashable."

"Um," Naminé starts, and Riku just glares at Yuffie.

"Accidents happen." She shrugs, picking another unopened paint can. "Besides. Orange looks sexy on you." Riku glares at her, snatching the paint can from her, and Yuffie looks at him, peeved, as he opens within seconds. Naminé was a bit startled - it took her a good three minutes - and he just threw it up - his message clear -  
covering the rest of the storage room, Yuffie, and Naminé with blue paint. Naminé stares down at her dress, in orange, black, white, and now blue - it was turning out to be a colorful morning. Yuffie laughs, picking up the paint cans and walking out with them before Riku could protest.

He sighs and turns to his sister.

"She's your girlfriend."

"Yeah, I know."

At least he was finally owning up to it.

-_- - _

"Yuffie!" Kairi yells, pounding on the door, not wondering why she was covered with orange and blue paint. Yuffie jumps, and she puts the paint can on the ground and unlocks the door.

"Gave me a heart attack." But Kairi runs past her, ignoring the fumes of the paint that are everywhere, and grabs a coffee cup. "'Hi, Yuffie. How are you and why are you covered in paint?' Funny story about that, Kai…" Kairi ignores her, trying to figure out how the coffee machine worked.

"Where's Riku?" she mumbles, as Yuffie attacks the wall with paint. Unlike Naminé, she had no patience with a paint brush, instead just picking up a paint can and launching it at the wall. She would do a little victory dance and then go to the next wall, starting the cycle over again. Kairi watches Yuffie cover the walls, mainly because she's bored and particularly because she wishes she had that type of freedom.

-_- - _

Naminé comes out of the storage room with Riku, whom Kairi eyes suspiciously before handing over her mug (more like thrusting it.) And Naminé watches her brother go over to the coffee machine, turn it on, and wait. It was strange, meeting someone she's never met before, but she _knew_ her from her dreams. She knew she loved a certain brunette, but not in this life. In this life she's not the damsel in distress, and she's not fighting anyone. And Naminé forgets where she's from, and why she knows her.

"What?" Kairi asks - Naminé hadn't realized she was staring at the auburn-haired girl. She walks past her over to Yuffie.

Sometimes she forgets what's real and what's just another dream. She is lost in a world of scattered hearts, of lost dreams, of heartless and nobodies - of people and faces she can't remember. In this reality that they were living, it was all wrong, but everyone were happy. Naminé watches Yuffie paint and Riku chat with Kairi as she chugged her coffee. This happiness was fake, wasn't it? Because it wasn't real…or was it? Naminé couldn't remember.

She closes her eyes.

Maybe they weren't supposed to be happy.

Reality eats away, and her memories begin to fade…her eyes remain shut, and her words remain unheard. She was crazy, after all - just as crazy as a caged bird.

- - - fin.

**It was pretty strange right. I LOVE IT. **

**SO FORRR LOREN'S CONTEST. **

**SUKI BETA-D **

**APPLY SOME DISCLAIMERS. **

**AND REVIEW SUM FIC. **

**(this one surely.) **


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